Tuesday, 11 November 2014

The fairy's remark

A short flavour text I wrote, in English (top) and German (below).

English:

[...]
"It is also unknown if it produces the pigment itself, or if it gets it from the host. We have no idea what makes this plant tick", she sighed.
"Fantastic", smiled Sagronn. Mirsruun raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
"I thought mages tried to learn everything about the world? Is it not frustrating to encounter so many unexplored things?""Not in the slightest. You see, we are convinced that one day we will know everything. And until then, it's simply a lot of fun to learn it all."
Mirsruun smiled, too. In the next hallway, she pointed at a door with a stained-glass window.
"And here the workshop."
The "workshop" was a lavishly furnished greenhouse with a glass roof, filled with well-stocked shelves; at night, hanging mushroom pots would provide light. Pots, tubs, bowls, and basins housed aromatic plants, insects and tiny nature spirits fluttered through wafts of mists. Each piece of furniture was wonderfully adorned with enamel and inlays. Sagronn often had to remind himself that it was perfectly normal for yellowforesters to live as elsewhere kings resided, and put his bag down on the generously decorated desk, while he tried not to gawk too stupidly - he saw six hundred and fourteen different kinds of plants. Then he spotted the pots with the new flower.
He instantly noticed the differences to the plants Mirsruun had suggested comparisons with. The venation was more regular, the pistils were shaped completely different, the petals two thirds heavier, and the stems at least two millimeters thicker.
Mirsruun waited for a moment besides the door of her messy workshop. The mage stared first around the room, then at the pots, apparently forgot about the world, pulled out notepaper and began schematizing it. With somnambulic sureness he drew up a stool with his foot and blindly reached for a scooper. She smiled again and left the room - she doubted he would have heard her, had she explained mealtimes to him.

Sagronn was just describing the average length of the anthers when he ran out of paper. Holding two tiny scoopers, he rummaged around in his bag and found nothing.
"Second drawer from the bottom", a high-pitched voice startled him out of his phrasing. He looked up and found himself eye to eye with a lurking gold fairy. He froze a moment, then slowly put the scoopers back into their accustomed holders. The goldfairy watched and nodded, satisfied.
"Sagronn", Sagronn introduced himself a little more relaxed, "Lair. I am here to inspect the new species." He pointed to the pots, next to which the goldfairy had settled itself cross-legged. He had little experience with goldfairies. This one had painted its legs with a raganaj pattern of fourteen stripes and wore the same clothes as the other employees, except the back was cut low for the wings. It was sixty-three centimeters tall, had a wingspan of sixty-seven centimeters, eleven large feathers on the head - which meant male - and weighed, without clothing, four thousand three hundred and twelve grams.
"Driinan of the Racalla", the fairy said and impatiently waved away a bumblebee. "Second from the bottom. Is it a gaskan?"
Sagronn blinked. In the drawer was a glass box with fifty-six sheets of dry paper, from which he picked up nine.
"No. I think it is either a wild form of the salbreela or a new species. I will have to distill them to say for certain."
"Not this one", Driinan nodded towards the largest, which meanwhile had attracted an almost hand-sized spirit, that was putting on a wobbly race with two bumblebees in the pot's coaster.
"One of the smaller", Sagronn agreed. "Is there an apothecary where I can distill?"
"There is the scentmaster's workshop", Driinan explained while he reached for a sheet of paper. Sagronn had put it aside after a speeding bug had landed in the wet ink.
"It has all the tools. A scentless room as well. There are even clothing hooks - just like here, by the way." He pointed at the hooks, then Sagronn's jacket on the stool. While Sagronn put it up, Driinan's long hands folded the paper into a slim, knife-like shape. Sagronn interestedly observed his precision and strength - four folds were no problem to the fairy's thin arms, and he was only four degrees off the perfect angle. When the foldwork was done, Driinan looked up sharply and pointed towards the door.
"Right, second left, blue door. How are you related to Ralgonkin?"
Sagronn blinked again. Ralgonkin Lair was a famous mage of his tribe and had went missing in the Broken Jaw Rocks here in Racallahan. He called up his family tree before his inner eye.
"My great aunt's husband is his cousin. Do you know him?"
"I know his guide. An untidy fellow. I am not astonished that they never reemerged, and the rocks are circled for good reason."
Then he stood up smoothly, jumped off the desk's ledge and returned to the greenhouse's mists from whence he had come. His takeoff had not moved a single paper on the table. Sagronn could not ask his question: It took nine days to hike around the Broken Jaw Rocks. Protective circles of that size could be counted on both hands. Was it broken, or was it still intact?

I was pretty nervous publishing this ;) There are some more text snippets, but I'm currently busy drawing more detailed parts of the world, like cities, and don't have as much time for writing. I'm happy you like it - maybe I'll publish the other snippets soon as well, what do you think?

About Me

Ranarh is the artistic alias of sci-fi/fantasy painter, illustrator, and concept artist Jennifer S. Lange. She enjoys spaghetti, lightsabers, and jellyfish. Jennifer lives in northern Germany with her fiancè and a blackbird.